The “Protecting Lives Using Surplus Equipment of 2017” or PLUS Act was proposed by Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Texas Republican, and would undo most of a 2015 Obama executive order that prohibited federal agencies from providing local law enforcement with certain equipment. The bill would prohibit any regulation, rule, or policy issued after May 15, 2015, that limits the sale or donation of surplus property from the federal government to state and local law enforcement agencies. This would mean that the restrictions imposed under President Obama in 2015, would be lifted.

Coincidentally, mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles, or MRAPs, a common sight during the latter years of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have found their way into the hands of local law enforcement since 2015, because while they are heavily armored, they are wheeled, not tracked. However, as “controlled” military hardware under federal law, the transfer of MRAPs to state and local police is still limited.

Other military items that are controlled — meaning the law enforcement agency requesting the gear must justify why they need, say, an MRAP in Garfield, New Jersey — are: armored personnel carriers; Humvees; 2.5-ton and 5-ton trucks or any vehicles with a breaching or entry apparatus; command and control vehicles; specialized firearms and ammunition; explosives and pyrotechnics such as flash bangs; battering rams; police batons; and riot shields and helmets.

Critics argue that heavy military hardware is inappropriate for domestic law enforcement, in part because police escalation of force differs so dramatically from military training and practices. Police training “by and large does not prepare policemen to manage high-stress situations the way the military prepares its soldiers,” two MIT researchers wrote in a Washington Post analysis of police militarization last year. “Police training tends to be short and classroom-based, and rarely emphasizes deescalation.” Ironically, the issue with police militarization may not be that there’s too little or too much of it, but that it’s not the right kind of militarization.

Attorneys for the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America have filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump asking the court to recognize the citizenship of an Alabama woman who left the U.S. to join ISIS and allow she and her young son to return to the United States.

U.S. soldiers surveil the area during a combined joint patrol in Manbij, Syria, November 1, 2018. Picture taken November 1, 2018. (U.S. Army/Zoe Garbarino/Handout via Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will leave "a small peacekeeping group" of 200 American troops in Syria for a period of time after a U.S. pullout, the White House said on Thursday, as President Donald Trump pulled back from a complete withdrawal.

With a legal fight challenge mounting from state governments over the Trump administration's use of a national emergency to construct at the U.S.-Mexico border, the president has kicked his push for the barrier into high gear.

On Wednesday, President Trump tweeted a time-lapse video of wall construction in New Mexico; the next day, he proclaimed that "THE WALL IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION RIGHT NOW"

But there's a big problem: The footage, which was filmed more than five months ago on Sep. 18, 2018, isn't really new wall construction at all, and certainly not part of the ongoing construction of "the wall" that Trump has been haggling with Congress over.

A group comprised of former U.S. military veterans and security contractors who were detained in Haiti on weapons charges has been brought back to the United States and arrested upon landing, The Miami-Herald reported.

The men — five Americans, two Serbs, and one Haitian — were stopped at a Port-au-Prince police checkpoint on Sunday while riding in two vehicles without license plates, according to police. When questioned, the heavily-armed men allegedly told police they were on a "government mission" before being taken into custody.

Army Sgt. Jeremy Seals died on Oct. 31, 2018, following a protracted battle with stomach cancer. His widow, Cheryl Seals is mounting a lawsuit alleging that military care providers missed her husband's cancer. Task & Purpose photo illustration by Aaron Provost

The widow of a soldier whose stomach cancer was allegedly overlooked by Army doctors for four years is mounting a medical malpractice lawsuit against the military, but due to a decades-old legal rule known as the Feres Doctrine, her case will likely be dismissed before it ever goes to trial.